Several U.S. citizens are among those who reported being beaten, suffocated, and receiving electric shocks when in the custody of Mexican authorities, according to the recently released U.S. State Department report on human rights around the world.

The most serious human rights issues appear to be linked to Mexico's fight against the drug cartels, according to the State Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices."

"Transnational criminal organizations remained the most significant perpetrator of violent crimes in the country, showing disregard for civilian casualties, engaging in human trafficking, and intimidating journalists and human rights defenders with violence and threats," the report said.

REPORTER

Diana Washington Valdez

"Sometimes in the context of the fight against transnational criminal organizations, but also at times unrelated to it, security forces reportedly engaged in unlawful killings, forced disappearances, and instances of physical abuse and torture," the report said.

For purposes of the report security forces include the military and civilian federal, state and municipal police.

Citing Mexican officials, the State Department report said the military had the greatest number of human rights complaints (1,695) filed against it in 2011.

Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not return messages seeking comment. Other Mexican governments said they are not responding to media inquiries during the election campaign season, which ends with the July 1 elections.

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El Pasoan Kevin Huckabee, whose son Shohn Huckabee, was tortured by Mexican authorities after his arrest in 2009 in Juárez on suspicion of drug-trafficking, said the report reinforced some of his suspicions about why no U.S. or Mexican official has addressed his son's torture complaint.

"I am concerned that the State Department is capable of reporting on the issues of government involvement, yet continue pursuing a relationship with the security forces that are known to be involved in human rights abuses of the highest order," Huckabee said. "I do not believe that the economic value in Mexico to the United States is worth looking past the awful array of human rights violations."

Although U.S. lawmakers and State Department officials made inquiries into Shohn Huckabee's mistreatment, including an allegation that an American was involved in the torture, the Huckabee family has yet to hear back from any official with an answer.

According to the State Department report, Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization in New York, reported in 2011 that were more than 170 cases of torture against security forces in the states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Nuevo Leon, and Tabasco since the government began its fight against transnational criminal organizations.

The most common forms of torture noted included "beatings, asphyxiation with plastic bags, waterboarding, electric shocks, sexual torture, and death threats," Human Rights Watch said.

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, a government agency, and other sources, also reported kidnappings, physical abuse, poor and overcrowded prison conditions, arbitrary arrests and detention, and confessions obtained through torture.

The broader costs to society, the State Department reported, include the killings of women, an increase in domestic violence, threats and violence against journalists and social media users, human trafficking, social and economic discrimination against indigenous people and unauthorized child labor.

"Despite some arrests for corruption," the State Department report said, "widespread impunity for human rights abuses by officials remained a problem in both civilian and military jurisdictions."

The Mexican government had allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross and Mexican national and state human rights commissions to monitor prison conditions. These were some of their findings:

Pretrial detainees were routinely held together with convicted criminals.

Conditions for female prisoners were inferior to those for men, particularly for women who lived with their children in prison.

Reports of physical and sexual abuse of women while in detention.

Lack of consistent medical care.

Huckabee said he's concerned about the U.S. trucker who was arrested in Juárez after he took a wrong turn into Mexico in April with a big load of ammunition intended for U.S. commercial customers.

"He was taken to a prison in the state of Veracruz, and consular officials said he is allowed to make only one phone call a month from there," said Huckabee, referring to Jabin Akeem Bogan.

Bogan, 27, who does not speak Spanish, faces charges of introducing military-use ammunition into Mexico.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.